“service iptables stop”.

(Readme - This story contains a few Linux commands. Linux is an operating system like windows. Even if you are not familiar with Linux, still you can go ahead and read this story :) I've provided the details of the commands used in this article. If you have any further questions, please do share in comments... I am curious to know!)

You must be wondering what could be a story of a Linux command!

This story is about my early days of testing, which is very close to my heart... a story about my friend and me...

Once upon a time, when I started working as a trainee (Tester) in my first company... My experience with computers was “knowledge of MS Office”. Ours was the first batch, which was selected based on aptitude not on knowledge about computer basics.?

The first day at work!?

Just logged in to my pc - OS was Fedora! (A flavour of Linux). It was like learning to ride a two wheeler when you don’t even know how to ride a bicycle!? It was a rollercoaster ride. Luckily, my batchmates, trainees from other batches were very helpful.

Training was like a boot camp, intended to teach - C Programming (Data Structures), OS basics (Linux), Networking and Testing basics. I didn’t know the ABC of “C”... Imagine writing a program for a doubly circular linked list… I used to faint virtually while reading that code of this program…

My survival strategy during my training days:

Just stand up, and state the challenge which I was facing. And any one from my cubicle or the next cubicle used to help…?

There was this guy, who used to resolve the issues, also used to make me understand the rationale behind. Let’s call him “the beach guy” as he is from Vizag. He became my go to person. I used to refer to him as “my local search engine”.?

During the training time, I realized I really need to study computer basics for my survival in IT. Thanks to IGNOU, I enrolled into Master of Computer Applications course (MCA). I started from Ground 0. Weekend classes, week day office. Tough time…?

A blissful state … when you start writing your first C program – #include <stdio.h> and you exactly know why you are using the header file!?

make utility , VCS (older days GIT) … were not scary anymore…?

{Make Utility - a tool that automatically determines which source files of a program need to be recompiled and/or linked

https://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/08/make-utility/

version control system (or VCS in short) is a tool that records changes to files on a filesystem.}

I finally started understanding this book - The programming in C by Dennis Ritchie. (For the first time,? when I saw that book, I was doubtful that I would never in my life be able to understand a single program in the book).?

Finally, training was over… I became a “Test Engineer”... It was not less than an achievement.

I want to thank my batchmates, Trainers, Mentors and this Linux command “scp” (command which is used to copy files between hosts in a network).?

I have lots of respect for the command "scp”, without which it wouldn’t have been possible to clear any of my C programming assignments! (pun purposefully intended!)?

scp - secure copy

My conversations with the beach guy started evolving, we used to discuss about technologies rather than just my troubleshooting queries.? Yes there were instances where I used to call him instead of searching on the net by myself. I didn’t want to add to the traffic on the internet by searching!

I had this group assignment - a mini project. Our project was about file management in servers and clients. It was quite a learning experience. Sunday was the day of submission. And on Saturday, my project mates and I were running one last time on the machine where we were supposed to give the demo - It was on a Linux machine.? Program started throwing an ERROR! In that lab, the Internet was not there. Also, it was the time of Nokia 1100…??(pre 4G days)

While going through the error messages, I realized that I needed to stop the firewall! Forgot the command to do so on a Linux machine!?

In windows, it is easy. Run this command - “firewall.cpl”

My next logical step was to call this “beach guy”.

Our conversation was like:?

Me: Hey, tell me the command to stop the firewall in Linux?

He: service iptables stop?

???????And to see the status, run this command - “service iptables status”

Me: Thank you !?

He: Do you know which situation I am in?

Me: Nope?

He: That is ok. Talk to you later.?

On Monday, when I went back to the office, I got to know that he was on leave for a couple of days.

After a few days, he was back to work. We went for a coffee (We love Coffee!)

I wanted to know what the situation was - that he was referring to in our last conversation.

Me: What was the situation which you were telling about?

A long pause….

He: My uncle met with an accident. I just moved his body from ambulance to the Mortuary

Me: (in tears) … I am extremely sorry… I didn’t have any idea …?

He: (Consoling me), That is ok. I just wanted a distraction at that moment. And you called me.?

I told him that I can never forget that conversation in my life. After that, I started learning to troubleshoot by myself... I used to think as “If the beach guy is in this situation, what he would do…etc”

Even after a decade, I still remember this as if it happened recently. Told him last night, if I can write about this. He said go ahead…?

And thank you dear beach guy, you are awesome…?:)